Death is a fact of life, fascinating, frightening, and ultimately mysterious. It's not so surprising, then, that every mythology in existence deals extensively with dying and the prospect of a world to come — a process often described in terms of a journey between this life and the next.

Like most mythological concepts, these figures have crept into present-day media; hardly a Bangsian Fantasy series leaves the concept unexplored, and most other fantasy settings at least touch on it. An increasingly prominent subgenre features the protagonists as psychopomps, either as their main job or as an important secondary duty.

Please add examples to this page only if they do not fit one of its subtropes.

Subtropes:

Afterlife Express: When the psychopomp travels in or takes the form of a vehicle, usually a train.

The Ferry Man: A mythological archetype (usually Charon) who guides a character to a specific destination in their afterlife.

Examples:

What the eponymous character becomes in Puella Magi Madoka Magica, after she becomes a Goddess of some sort. Her job is to take the souls of dead Magical Girls... somewhere, but it's definitely a better state of existence than becoming a Witch. Parallels to Valkyries are noted.

Bleach: This is what the shinigami (translated as Soul Reapers in this 'verse) are portrayed as rather than Grim Reapers or death gods. When people die, a soul reaper performs a certain act that allows the soul to pass on in peace. (Most of the 'bad guys', especially in early chapters, are souls that were left too long; it just takes a different act for them to move on). The story's events, however, makes them pretty much The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything (or, at least, the Reapers that are protagonists).

The arbiters in Death Parade. Their job is to judge whether souls should be reincarnated or discarded in "the void" through...having them play arcade games. (It's actually a little more complicated than that, of course.)

The third chapter of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service references both the group's symbol (kurosagi, the black heron that takes souls to the land of the dead) and the white stork that bring souls into the world of the living.

An early episode of InuYasha features the Soul Piper, a youkai who plays a flute for and entertains the souls of recently deceased children until they are ready to accept death and move on. Its eyes are usually closed, but open slightly every time one of its charges does wrong; when its eyes open completely, the soul in question will be wrapped in chains and Dragged Off to Hell.

In Sunday Without God, gravekeepers are something like a cross between psychopomps given physical form and Artificial Human. In a world without true death, these humanoid beings are the only ones who can grant rest to the living deceased. Protagonist Ai is half-human and half-gravekeeper, and while she can't sense the presence of the dead like full-blooded gravekeepers can, she can still properly bury them with the shovel given to her by her gravekeeper mother.

Ballads

In various American variants of Child Ballad 79, "The Wife of Usher's Well," the dead sons not only visit their mother to bring her hope, when she chases after them, Jesus appears to her and instructs her that she has nine days to repent of her sins. When the nine days are up, he comes to bring her to Heaven.

Comic Books

The Sandman: Several, most prominently Death of the Endless. She's portrayed as a Perky Goth girl who seems to have a deep and abiding affection for just about everyone and everything. It is extremely important to note that none of her siblings call her "Death"; only mortals do. Her actual function is to escort everyone into life and then escort them out. Her siblings simply call her "our elder Sister" (presumably since there is no mortal word for her true function/concept).

In his afterword to the Vertigo Comics artists' showcase Death Gallery, Neil Gaiman mentions the inspiration for this portrayal. A Kabbalistic teaching has it that when a person is about to die, the Angel of Death comes to him in the form of a woman so beautiful that his or her soul leaves their body in ecstasy.

In the spin-off comic Lucifer the titular character declares himself as a Psychopomp while persuading a demon to allow herself to be killed by him, so that she can come back as his servant. It works, since she has a huge bone to pick with her current masters.

Veitch and Edwards The Question miniseries featured a hitman named "Psychopomp", who specialized in not only killing his victims, but sending their souls to a specially-constructed personal hell.

The Spirou and Fantasio album titled "L'Ankou" is set in Brittany and features the eponymous Psychopomp (see Celtic myths, below). The Ankou is however portrayed as benevolent, and is helping the protagonists from preventing the meltdown of a nuclear plant. (He's fine dealing with the usual flow of deaths, but has absolutely no interest in a major catastrophe increasing his workload.) At one point, the Ankou shows himself to a pair of local cops about to arrest Spirou and Fantasio, and tells them "It's usually a bad thing for living people to see me, right? So, let's make a deal: you forget you saw those two, and I'll forget that I have seen you."

In Alfonso Azpiri's "They're Only Memories", a particularly full-figured one stops to comfort a dying solider - let's just say she goes to the afterlife happy.

Secret in Young Justice is a living (or not) conduit between the realms of the living and the dead with powers she doesn't really understand, but which sometimes enable her to act as a psychopomp.

Fan Works

A Growing Affection has The Reaper, who appears as a cute if otherworldly 4 year old girl with impossibly long, snow-white hair. She tells Naruto that it is her job to send souls to (and occasionally bring them back from) the various Heavens and Hells, but she does not control those worlds, nor does she decide who ends up where. And she has a grudge against Orochimaru for making her task harder.

In the Warrior Cats fic A Single Moment, Snowkit is guided to StarClan by an unnamed relative who's already joined it. He is not surprised by this, as ancestral spirits are a big part of Clan religion.

The Pieces Lie Where They Fell: When Twilight breaks free of her prison a thousand years after she was trapped by the Nightmare, Death is finally able to come for her, allowing her to make her journey to Elysium so she can rest in peace.

Soultaker has the eponymous men in black. Anyone who killed another during their lifetime has to become a Soultaker in the afterlife as atonement; this is probably the only semi-interesting part of the movie.

Jacob's Ladder. The "demons" are actually angels freeing you from your old life. In addition, Gabriel.

In the His Dark Materials series, every person has their own Death, an aspect of their being that guides them through the World of the Dead. In some universes, as with Daemons, people can see their Death and talk to them throughout their entire life.

Somewhat unsettling in hindsight, but Peter Pan is said to be one: “At first Mrs. Darling did not know, but after thinking back into her childhood she just remembered a Peter Pan who was said to live with the fairies. There were odd stories about him; as that when children died he went part of the way with them, so that they should not be frightened.”

Shaman of the Undead has eponymous shamans, who assist souls that for one reason or another didn't reach the Land of the Dead in crossing the border. They're so rare, local magical police has no records of them and had to do a lot of digging before believing the main character that she truly is one.

In John C. Wright's Orphans of Chaos characters discuss how Orpheus is certain to be the new Psychopomp. Later, in Titans of Chaos, the old one uses it to justify being an Omnicidal Maniac, since he can conduct the souls back after he recreates the universe right.

In Dorothy L. Sayers' The Devil to Pay, an angel and a devil both show up to claim Faustus's soul. (This is in fact a common Christian trope, so they can duke it out to establish where the soul ends up.)

The sparrows in Stephen King's novel The Dark Half are considered by the main character to be psychopomps. This turns out to be true in the ending, where the sparrows carry George Stark off to the afterlife

Two of these appear in The Dresden Files novel Ghost Story. The first is Carmichael, who appears to guide Harry Dresden to his superiors, who are a sort of "between worlds police" who specialize in safeguarding free will as agents of the Archangel Uriel. The second appears much later, in the form of a literal "angel of death" who is standing over Father Forthill's body as he lays dying. When Harry questions her purpose, she tells him that her job is to safeguard the souls of the righteous who the Enemy would seek to waylay on their way to the afterlife, and that she is standing by for the moment when Forthill dies.

Neil Gaiman's American Gods references this by name. In this case, it's Thoth/Mr. Ibis leading the main character after his death on the World Tree.

In H.P. Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror", it was whippoorwills. They would gather near someone who was dying and if they got the soul would hoot and sing for the rest of the night. If the person died and the birds quieted down, then you knew they missed it.

Fredric R. Stewart's Cerberon provides a whole living species of psychopomps called skraad. Fittingly, they are human-sized avians resembling bearded vultures, who see it as their natural duty to protect the living from the dead. They not only lead lost souls they encounter to the afterlife, but can quite easily put down zombies and vampires. Unfortunately for them, the local Corrupt Church is infested with vampires who have established a widespread campaign of extermination against the skraad.

In The Otherworld Series, the Death Maidens of the Autumn Lord have this duty. They are generally themselves deceased souls, but in Changeling Delilah D'Artigo is made into a Death Maiden while still alive.

In Laura Amy Schlitz's Splendors And Glooms, Cassandra's last days are haunted by a Thing that hovered at the ceiling and waited. Finally, it swooped in on her. She struggled, realized it was holy, and died.

One of the duties of the Black God from the Tortall Universe, one of the only gods who seems to care about the mortals in his care. There's also his unofficial priestess, Beka Cooper, who can hear the souls of murdered individuals riding on pigeons, guide them to the after-life, and avenge their deaths.

The Atomic Blood Stained Bus uses the dullahan from Celtic mythology, although the version in this story doesn't strictly match up to the original myth. It's never clear if he works alone or there are others doing the same job.

In the Dante Valentine novels, Necromances interact with a manifestation of the god of death to perform their duties (raising shades of the deceased). In Danny's case it takes the form of the Egyptian god Anubis.

In Shaman Blues, Witkacy is a psychopomp for ghosts, as he can lead them into the afterlife.

In "The Zombie Knight" reapers take souls to the next world. Weirdly enough they don't actually know if there even is a next world. However leaving a soul alone will cause it to decay and experience extreme pain so they do it anyway. However some do it because they believe they are destined to.

Hector: Then why, um... why do you bother reaping? If you think you’re just carrying souls into oblivion, then... why not just leave them alone? Garovel:Because that would be a great cruelty... On its own, a soul will soon decay. Within a day, it will become a confused mass of semi-consciousness. Within two, it will become a prison of raw agony... Ferrying souls is a task we take upon ourselves not because a higher power has ordained us to, but just because it’s the right thing to do... And besides, what the fuck else are we gonna do with our time? It’s a good way to relieve boredom.

In The Witchlands, people believe in the Hagfishes, a group of spirits or minor deities whose job is to carry souls of the deceased to Noden.

Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality series features Death, who in this 'verse doesn't kill people but only removes their souls and sends them on their way to the appropriate afterlife based on how many good and evil deeds they did.

Live-Action TV

The Twilight Zone (1959) was rife with characters whose duty it was to show the protagonist that he/she was dead in reality, and to guide him/her to the afterlife. Several of them appear on the show's Heartwarming page.

The Grand Finale of Ashes to Ashes - and, by extension, Life on Mars (2006) - reveals this to be the case for Gene Hunt and Jim Keats. The entire series has been a purgatory for British coppers, and Gene is supposed to help them resolve their emotional baggage and move on (too bad he doesn't remember this himself until the end). Keats is Gene's opposite number - if you lose your way, he's one who takes you, and it's pretty clear where.

Lost: Once Desmond realizes he's dead in the flash-sideways verse, he becomes one and attempts to get everyone to realize it to so they can move on. Hurley later joins him in this task.

Star Trek showed a few psychopomps from alien cultures, like Kortar for Klingons, and the Registrar for Ferengi. (Always explainable as dreams, visions, or hallucinations of course)

Farscape: Stark, who unlike most examples was not so much a cosmic entity as just some random guy that for mostly unexplored reasons had the talent of being able to help people cross over.

Well, he is a kind of cosmic entity, as members of his species are actually energy beings who simply manifest in humanoid form. He is capable of releasing some of that energy, which is what helps people move on. Stark is a little off-his-rocker, so even that basic explanation was all anyone was ever able to get out of him.

Kingdom Hospital had Antubis, a giant anteater. The final episode reveals he's actually Anubis, having adopted his present form when Mary Jensen misheard his name during their first meeting. Apparently, he just decided to run with it.

Anubis shows up as a psychopomp in American Gods - he's introduced first by escorting an Egyptian Muslim woman into the afterlife. Then, one episode later, he tries to escort Laura into an Ironic Hell - only to have Laura pulled back suddenly into the land of the living as a kind of revenant. They meet again later - with Anubis in his mortal identity of Mr. Jacquel and his partner Thoth as Mr. Ibis. The two of them get Laura patched up somewhat, but Jacquel/Anubis warns Laura that once her business with her husband Shadow is concluded, she's going right back to the afterlife that's waiting for her.

The Arrowverse introduces the Black Flash at the end of The Flash (2014) Season 2 by forcibly transforming heinous villain Zoom into the Speed Force's new "agent". In a change from the source material, it doesn't show up when a speedster is nearing his death, but rather, to actively hunt time aberrations and anomalies (usually other speedsters who violated the Speed Force's laws).

Egyptian: Though they wouldn't actually take you to the afterlife, Anubis, Horus, and Nephtys would be present at your final judgement. To get to the afterlife there were a few methods:

You had to find your own way through the desert of death to be judged. Prayers, spellscrolls and various items put into your grave would help you on this journey. Oh, and you had to be mummified, if you didn't want to take the journey as a rotting corpse, and probably never reach your destination.

Kings got a Celestial Ferryman (there were several, all divine) to ferry them accross the celestial waterway of the afterlife.

Kings could also climb a spiritual ladder into the sky and join the sun god in his solar boat.

The one who did take you to the afterlife was the falcon god Sokar (Seker), who despite his fearsome aspect was a Nice Guy. He was associated with the creator god Ptah and considered to be an aspect of the risen Osiris — as close as Egypt ever got to a Christ figure. You can see Yul Brynner as Pharaoh Ramses II praying to him in The Ten Commandments. Ramses really was a devotee of Sokar. He is one of the oldest Egyptian deities.

One of Hermes’ tasks was to lead the shades of the dead to Charon’s ferry. Some say that similar role was fulfilled by Hekate and her Lampades, nymphs of the Underworld. They guided the blessed dead (i.e. initiates of the Eleusinian Mysteries).

Charon ferried the souls of the dead across Styx as long as they could pay him a single obolos coin. Those buried without it were left to wander the banks of the Styx for all eternity.

Zoroasterian: Daena for the Righteous, Vizaresh for the wicked.

Islam: Azrael, though the Qur'an simply refers to it as "The Angel of Death". What the Qur'an actually refers to are angels of death, plural. Only in a hadith (which are always a slippery subject given that the Qur'an is the only reliable scripture) is there any talk of an Azrael.

Popular Christianity: It varies, but most commonly St. Peter and various angels. See Fluffy Cloud Heaven.

There is also a frequent tale of two Psychopomps — an angel and a devil — who may dispute over the soul, which determines not only your guide but your destination.

Defied by Jesus himself in The Four Gospels. He explicitly stated that he isn't the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive. Ultimately, he would resurrect the people who believed in him and followed his teaching. (Note that the Bible often equates death with "eternal damnation"... whether or not the physical body is alive, the person, ie, their soul, is not dead unless they are damned to Hell.)

"He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are badly mistaken!" Mark 12:27

"I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?' He is not the God of the dead, but of the living." Matthew 22:32

He is not God of the dead but of the living, for to Him all are alive." Luke 20:38

Peter Pan, for children that died young, at least in the original tales.

Various: The Wild Hunt acts in a similar role in some versions of the legend (in others, it's a hunting party either for demons, The Fair Folk, or the Old Gods. The French region of Bretagne has Ankou (or l'Ankou, ie the Ankou), which is similar to the Grim Reaper in many aspects but differs as his scythe is fit together wrongly ("emmanchée à l'envers") and that in some versions of the tale the last dead of the year fills the role for the following year, other versions have it that he is a suicide. Related: the washers at the ford wash the clothes of people about to die; in some legends, helping the washers is fine, but if you wash them the wrong way, the Ankou will assume you're dead and that it's your shroud.

Dogs are frequently linked with death in mythology. In European folklore, a dog howling at night was said to mean someone was about to die, the hounds of Annwn brought a person to paradise, and the Egyptian Anubis had a jackal's head.

In the original mythology, hearing the cry of a Banshee meant that someone who heard it was going to die. It wasn't until Dungeons & Dragons was made that the idea of the cry being anything more than a sign of approaching death took off.

The Cyhyraeth fulfilled a similar role in Welsh mythology.

The Dullahan, though actually a member of the Unseelie court, hurls blood in the face of those mortals he encounters as a sign that death will claim them soon. Sometimes he is said to come driving a hearse (a black coach with candles mounted in skulls for light, human thigh bones for spokes and a human spine to hold up the worm-eaten pall) drawn by six headless horses, with or without a banshee at his side.

Celtic/Brittany: The Ankou, who is often described as a skeletal figure in a large-brimmed hat and a cloak, collecting the souls of the dead in a horse-drawn carriage.

Chinese: The Black and White Guards of Impermanence (黑白無常). They are in charge of leading the spirits of the dead into The Underworld. They wear tall hats and long robes of their colour and are usually depicted with their unnaturally long tongues sticking out, as a way to scare evil spirits. The Black Guard is in charge of leading the aforementioned evil spirits while the White Guard is in charge of the good ones. Both have messages written on their hats, which vary depending on the depiction (or possibly whether they're on or off the job). The Black Guard may have "Peace under heaven" (天下太平) or "Now chasing you" (正在捉你, or idiomatically "I'm going to get you!") written on his hat while the White Guard may have “Fortunes at first sight" (一見生財) or "You may come to me" (你可來了). They have Meaningful Names as well: the Black Guard's name is Fan Wu-jiu (范無救), which has the extended meaning of "if you're a sinner (范, a pun on 犯, "to offend, to commit (a crime), to violate (a law or rule)"), then you can't be helped (無救)." The White Guard's name, Xie Bi-an (謝必安), has the extended meaning of "if you are thankful (謝) and a good person, then you'll surely find peace (必安)."

You play as one of the Bound, who has partially fused with a type of ghost, and go around doing the work of the dead, or just doing the shit your Geist wants. One of the Archetypes, the Advocates, is pretty much devoted to helping ghost resolve their Unfinished Business and allowing them to pass on.

Book of The Dead introduced perhaps the biggest in the entire setting: Mictlantecuhtli, the Kerberos of Mictlan, also known as Polydegmon the Collector. He doesn't guide souls per se, but the book mentions how he sees himself as the guardian of the dead. His biggest claim though, is how he can retrieve the soul of anyone who has ever died. Not even Final Death, Cessation of Existence, even old age (which is big, considering old age is usually the final death in most other settings) could stop him from doing this. Combined his Geognosis and perfect 15 stats across the board, he might even be one of the mythical Deathlords.

GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 9 introduces necromancers (among others) as a playable character type in dungeon fantasy worlds. One of the suggested possible motivations for such individuals joining adventuring parties is explicitly that they may act as psychopomps — specialists in helping the dead go on correctly to the next world, as a moral duty. As undead are clearly not doing this right, and dungeons tend to have a lot of undead, psychopomp necromancers may want to visit those places and get "a bit forceful".

Lance Romenel in Nobilis voluntarily serves as a psychopomp for dogs. He's not actually responsible for dogs - he's the Power of Records - but he does it anyway.

Scion: Psychopomp is literally a Purview and is used by any of the Gods of Travel or Journeys or characters who delve into its powers, although its powers refer to travelling and rapid movement more than actual guidance to the dead. The Death Purview is a separate sphere of power in its entirety.

In Pathfinder Pharasma, Goddess of the Dead, employs a special class of spiritual servant with this job, referred to by name. There is also a specific kind of creature called a Psychopomp that occasionally does this job, but not all psychopomps are Psychopomps and vice versa..

Grim Fandango has one as the main protagonist, Manny Calavera, a Grim Reaper who lives on the land of the dead, and his job is going to the land of the living, bringing dead people to the land of the dead, and sell them tickets to the Ninth Underworld, which is essentialy heaven, Manny is only allowed to go to the Ninth Underworld if he pays his debts for what he done in life, and is working as a reaper to do such, when working as a reaper, he dresses with a robe and carries a schyte, but when he is not picking souls, his job is just like in a real world office.

Touhou has Eiki Shiki, Yamaxanadu, the Yama/Enma (see Hindu Mythology above) assigned to Gensokyo. (As well as her slacker subordinate Komachi, but she is a more specific trope.) Yuyuko is technically a psychopomp too — she can cause death, she is extremely responsible with her power, and her happy, cheerful attitude is certainly good for reassuring a moribund person that everything in the afterlife is going to be fine.

Many of the holders of the Candelabra appear again in Shin Megami Tensei IV as difficult, very rare bonus bosses. Charon also appears as the boatman that you can bribe to return to life, should you die.

Jade Empire: The Spirit Monks serve the Water Dragon, who is the Shepherd of the Dead. The monks have the duty to deal with restless ghosts, and can bind spirits in order to escort particularly troublesome specimens to Dirge, the gateway to the Underworld. They can also temporarily disperse spirits through applied force.

The world of Haephnes in Soul Nomad & the World Eaters has a being known as a Master of Death, a god who serves as a psychopomp to gods and humans alike and controls the flow of souls to the afterlife. Souls there go through a cycle of reincarnation, and without a Master of Death the cycle stagnates as souls are unable to flow freely between life and afterlife. That's their job in theory, at least. Gig certainly made the souls flow, but it was a purely one-way ticket.

Soul Nomad also has an inversion known as a Master of Life, the counterpart of the Master of Death. Its job is to see that souls that flow into the world from the afterlife are born properly.

The truth behind it all is slightly more complex: The afterlife is another world in itself, called Drazil. Drazil has its own Master of Death and Master of Life, who are minions of the Big Bad. The Big Bad sought to stop the balance of souls in order to make Drazil flourish at the cost of Haephnes. Thus, he makes Drazil's Master of Death stop the souls of Drazil's dead from returning to Haephnes, and arranges for Haephnes' Master of Death to be assassinated so he can't stop souls from flowing from Haephnes to Drazil. Needless to say, this ends up messing up things royally for Haephnes — and then Gig comes along...

In Solatorobo, the Anjalists believe that birds guide souls to an afterlife above the sky. Naturally, they tend forests for the birds to live in (when they're not acting likeCatholics, that is).

A playable class within Bloodline Champions. With long braided hair with sticks in it in addition to wearing a headband, they also have a hippie-ish look.

While Dusknoir's Pokedex entry in Pokémon Diamond and Pearl ("the antenna on its head captures radio waves from the world of spirits that command it to take people there") would suggest that it abducts unwilling people, entries in later games suggest Dusknoir actually acts as a ferryman that guides lost souls "home" (into the realm of the dead). Drifblim is also stated in Ultra Sun to carry away people into the afterlife if they grab them at dusk.

RuneScape has two known Psychopomps, Death and Icthlarin. Death's role is to separate dead souls from their bodies and help them reach the underworld, while Icthlarin (who is based on Anubis from Egyptian Mythology) guides souls through the underworld of Gielinor, protecting them from his insane sister who used to be in charge of reincarnation before she went insane. Death is actually referred to as a Psychopomp in the lyrics of the song of the Halloween 2014 event. Death was given his role as a psychopomp by Guthix after he became the very first human to ever die in Gielinor. According to the games lore, each planet has its own version of Death and it's own underworld. Upon death a creature's soul is reaped by the death of the planet they are currently on, and then passes to the underworld of whatever planet they consider home.

Arkay, the God of Life and Death among the Nine Divines, is one in his Yokudan/Redguard aspect of Tu'whacca. Tu'whacca guides the souls of the honored dead to the Far Shores, where he serves as caretaker.

Kynareth, the Goddess of the Air among the Nine Divines, is one in her Khajiiti and Nordic aspects as Kynarthi and Kyne, respectively. In particular, as Kyne, she fills a role similar to that the Valkyries.

Web Comics

Daily Grind: Jolene comes from a long line of female Psychopomps. That didn't stop her mother from going to hell, but it did get her a nice house with the abusive-victim roles reversed.

Gunnerkrigg Court: Numerous. Muut, a death spirit from Cahuilla Indian folklore, is probably most prominent. Aside from Ketrak, the Guide of insects, all of them are preexisting mythological figures, though some, such as Agni (pictured above) and the Moddey-Dhoo, were not psychopomps in the original stories. Antimony first realized their nature when two called on her, as the only person who could see them, to decide which of them one dead child should go with. And in at least one instance, a living human served as a psychopomp for a relative after none of the Guides came to help. This is because the person's life force didn't actually die, but was unintentionally stolen by her daughter, who had to guide her as a final action cementing it..

Life and Death has Steve, who serves as the psychopomp for the world, and occasionally the one to actually kill people. The catch is that Death is the name of his job, not his nature.

In Rhapsodies, Deidre is a psychopomp working at one of the local hospitals. When asked she says she "handles malpractice." (Most people think this means she's a lawyer.)

The Phoenix Requiem : Spirits, who used to take humans' souls to afterlife before their imprisonment. It is revealed near the end that actually the Mehdiea or Hellions as they're known were responsible for sending souls to afterlife. As both Spirits and Mehdiea are imprisoned, at the end it falls to Jonas to do the job. He even mentions at the end that some people call him "The Reaper".

The newly dead in Mountain Time are greeted by the Great One, who is both a psychopomp and a hot dog.

Also, considering the details of how Time players tend to operate, they tend to be pretty associated with death anyway.

AA: alpha dave still has a long way to go

AA: hes still not at ease with his mortality

AA: but people like us have to be!

AA: we have to be prepared to die a thousand deaths before our quest is complete

Terezi later explains the Trolls' legendary psychopomp, a frightening, inescapable skull-faced demon with a "super foxy handmaiden" doing his bidding. This is a pretty obvious reference to Lord English and the Demoness (aka "The Handmaid"). Dave then points out that psychopomps are a very common mythological theme, and you can expect pretty much every culture to have one (and that it's hardly a shocker that he's a skeleton/skull).

The Buildingverse has a lot of deaths running around. Girls Next Door at least two, Roommates three (both have the deaths of Discworld and Sandman, and Roommates also the Erl-king the fae of child's death).

Stand Still, Stay Silent: Guiding those that have fallen victim to that universe's Plague Zombie inducing disease is one of the jobs of Finnish mages and the Swan of Tuonela from Finnish mythology guides those who have died of other causes.

Web Original

In Tasakeru, the creatures called the Shroud take on a form that the deceased with trust implicitly, in order to ease the passage to the Beneath.

Considering that he isn't shown to be directly interfering with the townsfolk at any point, it's implied that the Undertaker in The Backwater Gospel is this.

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